6N: Scotland v Wales: Gregor Townsend plays down pack power concerns

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GREGOR TOWNSEND says he doesn’t understand questions about whether Scotland’s pack has the power required to be consistently successful against the top teams in the world. 

"In what context?" he retorted, when the subject was raised during today’s [Thursday] team announcement press conference, ahead of Saturday evening’s clash against Wales at Murrayfield.

"I disagree with that,” he responded, when it was put to him that Scotland can struggle to generate front foot ball when the intensity has upped a level against the likes of England in the second half of their most recent game and Ireland in the match before that.

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"When we go down to Twickenham and we outscore England three tries to one, the pack’s got a big part to play in that. I think the first try, there were strong carries by the forwards that opened up space for the backs. The pack will provide that quick ball … their  work in contact … our line-out produced two tries from the weekend.

"Yeah, Ireland played well against us, but that’s one game obviously,” he added. "I look at Australia [in the Autumn], I look at how the pack fronted up against South Africa, I look at Italy and England. Ireland played well, there’s no question that they were the better team that day. We didn’t adjust to the injuries we had probably as quickly as we could have.

"Our pack has gone really well against other teams and this [game against Wales on Saturday] is another opportunity to show how good they are this weekend."

It is not just around the park that Scotlands forwards appear to have struggled at times during this Six Nations campaign, with Townsend acknowledging that there is work to do to cut down on scrum penalties conceded, especially ahead of taking on a Wales team which earned three scrum penalties and two free-kicks on Ireland’s put-in last time out, as well as picking up two penalties and a free-kick on their own ball in that match.

"Yes, Wales were excellent there,” acknowledged Townsend. “They got a lot of decisions against Ireland. I know Ireland’s scrum coach wasn’t too happy with the decisions but they showed their strength there. We know that Wales have been a good scrummaging team over the last couple of years so it’s going to be a big challenge for us on Saturday."

"We have to influence the referee as much as possible to make sure that the penalties we feel we should be winning are given because of how we start our scrum,” he continued. "I think we’ve taken two or three scrums to get into and show who we are. There weren’t many scrums against England, I think the last one was in the 50th minute but we were starting to get the upper hand. The same happened against Italy and Ireland.

"We know it’s an area where we can exert more pressure on the opposition if it’s a game that has a lot of scrums. Scrum is also a really good source of possession for attacks. Ireland got their first try against us from a scrum play.

"It’s much harder to defend now, you tend to be on the back foot if you can get the ball away from scrum. We haven’t had as many scrums as we’d like to attack from. We know with our back-line we should be able to get behind teams if that happens."

Townsend was asked if he had fed back to Pierre Brousset the French referee, who became something of a pantomime villain in Scottish rugby circles following the Calcutta Cup defeat on account of a series of contentious decisions, including instructing Finn Russell to move the ball closer to the touchline for his final conversion attempt to win the match, after the stand-off initially set up the kick in line with where Duhan van der Merwe had grounded the ball.

“Yes, it’s the same process in every game,” he explained. “You’re allowed to put a certain amount of clips on our review portal and you get direct feedback from the referee. All the head coaches have a relationship with the referee manager as well, so you can have further discussions with him, which we certainly had after the England game.

“It doesn’t really change anything. Whether you get the feedback that you’re looking for, that should have been a penalty, that should have not been a try, that conversion should have been closer, whatever it is that we asked, it doesn’t change anything. The scoreline won’t change. It doesn’t really make it even less or more frustrating. The game has happened and we have to look at the things that we could have done better to get the win.

“And in the knowledge that referees make mistakes, so do players and so do coaches, so you’re going to get those games where the referee is not error-free.

“That [directing Russell to move the ball] was one of the things we asked feedback for, so I’ll keep that to the relationship we have with the referees, but yeah, it was one area that we’d ask the question. I think we all knew that the try was scored further infield, so yeah, coaches probably make the most mistakes, players and then referees, so it happens and we can’t change history now.”

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